A Better AI.

[cf_nz]

Iustus,

I managed to find a way around it, by using the download option in the sourceforge repository and saving as a .cpp.

Thanks though, it works now.

 

[Iustus]

Iustus,

I managed to find a way around it, by using the download option in the sourceforge repository and saving as a .cpp.

Thanks though, it works now.

Fair enough. That said, it should have been just a momentary glitch. If you had just right away selected SVN Update again, it should have worked.

If you get enough network errors (I do not know if it is on the sourceforge side or the tortoise side), it will give an error like this and give up. When this happens, just repeat the same command again and it should work.

Stupid internet!

-Iustus

 

[TAfirehawk]

And that is precisely what my main gripe has always been about CIV4. Although advertised as being able to play many different ways, at higher levels war becomes the ONLY viable way to win.

The game mechanics are broken.

The fact that Blake has managed to improve the AI to such a huge degree all by himself tells me that the original programming for both AI and game mechanics was poorly done.

Don't play at higher levels and don't warmonger...it is not an automatic win for a human vs. AI.

Well as long as you don't fall into the warmonger trap

Blake is doing an awesome job in what Firaxis should have done from the start...but like the ViSa mod, Firaxis made it relatively easy for players to tweak this beast

 

[Dida]

The only levels needed would be to lower the difficulty of the AI to give the human a better chance, so that effectively a even playing field would be the hardest highest level and that only the very best human players would be able to compete with the AI in this setting.

As it should be, like good Chess programs.

The AI for a Chess game is architecturally different from AI for a game like Civ4. Most fundamentally, most Chess game AI is build on a Mini-Max tree, where the level of sophistication can be lowered by simply decreasing the depth to which the tree will be traversed. To adjust the AI for a game like civ4, some form of handicap must be used, either against the human player or the AI.

 

[Arlborn]

I've seen a few complaints about agression being the necessity on harder levels.

This is true, and it has to do with game mechanics, not the AI. Try playing a mulityplayer game. These are basically always war games, and are very agressive. If you're playing a multi that is not like this, then to be honest, your adversaries suck. This is just the nature of the game itself, not anything blake can do to change that. As the AI gets more difficult, you are required to play more agressive to keep up. If you have a problem with this, move down a level.

Like I said, try multi if this doesn't make sense to you, you'll realize that agression and warmongering really is the name of the game with civ, and that's just the way it is.

Your assumptions are broken as well as the game then. Its not supposed to be the nature of the game, at least its not how they sell the game. If the game is like that on purpose then they should say that and not give us the "illusion" that any path we choose for win, we are able to win with some work. Even against the human players in MP. CIV is not sold as an agressive and military game only, so if you need to be agressive to win the highest levels, something is wrong.

 

[cf_nz]

Iustus,

Funny, I'd tried 'SVN update' multiple times, the only time it did work was after your post in response to the error, I figured you'd fixed it.

You're right, stupid internet.

 

[Wlauzon]

I've seen a few complaints about agression being the necessity on harder levels.
............
As the AI gets more difficult, you are required to play more agressive to keep up. If you have a problem with this, move down a level.

I disagree with that premise.

There are other forms of "aggression" besides blowing up your neighbor. Some of us might prefer to build such a wonderous society that his people revolt and join ours - but that and many other non-war options don't work well at higher levels.

Even the space race at Prince+ involves more war than space ship building.

 

[eoc]

great! thank u Blake so much.

i cost several hours to translate your article & FAQs into Chinese.and i posted down them at some Chinese CivFan web sites. I have already remarked your name and the original links.

we all expecting your Vanilla Build.

thanks again !

 

[abuaftab]

I read that most of these AI improvements by Blake are already in the 2.08 patch? Or has Blake done an even nastier job on the AI than Firaxis patch?

 

[TAfirehawk]

I read that most of these AI improvements by Blake are already in the 2.08 patch? Or has Blake done an even nastier job on the AI than Firaxis patch?

This is further enhancement beyond v2.08 patch

 

[abuaftab]

That being the case am I gonna get my bum fried if I use it?

 

[TAfirehawk]

That being the case am I gonna get my bum fried if I use it?

Well the AI is much better, but still beatable.

 

[Blake]

A Vanilla 1.61 version (meaning, for non-Warlords) is now up on the Sourceforge Downloads Page, I think it should be fairly obvious which is which.
The Vanilla download has VANILLA 1.61 in all caps.
The Warlords download has WARLORDS 2.08 in all caps.

This build was created by Iustus (he did the work of synchronizing the code) and includes all cumulative AI fixes in the Warlords builds and also some bug fixes like whipping bug and tech overflow. It should bring the Vanilla AI fully up to speed with the latest Warlords AI.

Should I create a thread somewhere else here for the Vanilla AI?

 

[TAfirehawk]

Blake,

You can keep the thread for both versions, most modcomps (like thelopez's great work) keeps them together.

 

[Roland Johansen]

A Vanilla 1.61 version (meaning, for non-Warlords) is now up on the Sourceforge Downloads Page, I think it should be fairly obvious which is which.
The Vanilla download has VANILLA 1.61 in all caps.
The Warlords download has WARLORDS 2.08 in all caps.

This build was created by Iustus (he did the work of synchronizing the code) and includes all cumulative AI fixes in the Warlords builds and also some bug fixes like whipping bug and tech overflow. It should bring the Vanilla AI fully up to speed with the latest Warlords AI.

Should I create a thread somewhere else here for the Vanilla AI?

Blake, you might want to update the first post with some information that your better AI is now also available to vanilla civ4 players. There are many people who won't read the whole thread and thus might miss this information. At the moment the first post tells us that there does not yet exist a vanilla version.

Great work by the way. I'm happily using the warlords version.

 

[Harrier]

The only immediate change that I would make would be to lessen the likelihood of the AI trading their tech with each other compared to how they trade tech with the human.

The problem I have now in Monarch level (at Epic speed) is that the game moves too quickly through the medieval and industrial periods - the AI is getting rifles in the medieval time period! :/

I am playing a game using Blakes new version Marathon speed at Noble level.

I am isollated on a land mass with 10 cities. (Fractal map - standard size).

I waver between 2nd and 4th in power. I was/am about 8 techs+ behind at least 4 other civs.

But I am finding if I research a tech that most of the other AI's (except the one that is top dog) do not have, I can trade it for about 3 to 4 others of lesser value with 2 or 3 of the other civs that are ahead in the tech race.

I maybe wrong, but sometimes after a couple of trades, I will give it to a smaller civ for just a few hundred gold only, on the assumption that another AI civ will do that anyway between turns.

I then may drop behind again but ban almost catch up using the same trading.

I did not see this happen before and it may be just coincidense, but it was unexpected behaviour.

In the past when I fell behind in the number of techs the AI just would not trade, even if I had a tech they did not.

I don't think Blake altered the tech trading part of the AI - so maybe this was just a one-off or maybe an unforseen benefit of his other changes.

As far as I am aware I have not really changed my game play style at all.

 

[Blake]

Blake, you might want to update the first post with some information that your better AI is now also available to vanilla civ4 players. There are many people who won't read the whole thread and thus might miss this information. At the moment the first post tells us that there does not yet exist a vanilla version.

Great work by the way. I'm happily using the warlords version.

I have done so.

Btw I seem to recall I forgot to answer a question from you amoungst all the spam on difficulty levels...

If you wish to offer ideas on how to improve the AI, on what they should do to utilize certain game features and so on, then you are welcome to. Even if something is "obvious", I may not have thought of it.

For example two of my more recent improvements were a result of posts by a player in my original thread at poly:

Another Nice Improvement to the AI would be it's usage of Great People, Have you guys seen an AI have a golden age in the early middles ages... WHAT A WASTE OF GREAT PEOPLE, their better off Becoming Super Specialist or lightbulbing techs.

....

Do the Automated Wrokers know how 2 chop rush a wonder?

...

I didn't use the suggestions given for great people (I came up with a more comprehensive solution) but it is certainly useful to point out if the AI is being wasteful or neglecting some feature, at least if it hasn't already been said a couple hundred times before...

 

[civzombie]

"If you wish to offer ideas on how to improve the AI, on what they should do to utilize certain game features and so on, then you are welcome to. Even if something is "obvious", I may not have thought of it."

Okay, i'll bite.

The AI doesn't use the great general feature to its fullest. The AI just isn't smart enough to manage a troup with an attached great general.

Us human players rarely attach a great general to a troop, because it is only worth it in certain circustances and when the attached unit is *carefully* used. The AI just can't carefully use them.

I suggest programming the AI to just always burn a great general on an acadamy or a military instructor.

The only excpetion that I could think of would be adding it to a naval unit. That *could* be worth it, as an AI naval unit with an attached great general probably would last a while and cause some problems for the human player That is still a stretch though, and the AI should probably only use them on acadamies and instructors.

 

[civzombie]

""If you wish to offer ideas on how to improve the AI, on what they should do to utilize certain game features and so on, then you are welcome to. Even if something is "obvious", I may not have thought of it.""

Here is another observation.

Sometimes an AI has a catipult or other siege engine in its city. Meanwhile, the human player has a stack outside.

The AI often doesn't suicide the seige engine on the stack. I suspect the reason for this is that the AI sees a terrible win percentage (2-3%) and therefore decides not to attack with the siege engine.

However, the seige engine is even less useful sitting inside the city.

I would suggest programming the AI to always attack a stack of 3+ units with a siege engine when said stack is in the AI's territory. Or something similiar to that. If you could do some smarter algorithm that would be more ideal. I suggested this simple one only for practical reasons.

 

[BYC]

Your assumptions are broken as well as the game then. Its not supposed to be the nature of the game, at least its not how they sell the game. If the game is like that on purpose then they should say that and not give us the "illusion" that any path we choose for win, we are able to win with some work. Even against the human players in MP. CIV is not sold as an agressive and military game only, so if you need to be agressive to win the highest levels, something is wrong.

Yeah, well there's plenty of things in the world that are advertised as one thing, but it turns out to be something else.

I find that in Civ4, aggression is just flat out better than other paths. It's either early aggression so I can coast, or I go crazy on research to crush my opponents later.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, if Civ4 is suppose to be ANYTHING like history, war is pretty much inevitable. But on the other hand, it's still a game, and I wish other strategies were viable. All I know is that out of the hundreds of games of Civ4 that I have played (SP and MP), aggression is almost always a must.

I find that the difficulties in Civ4 are very artificial. There is higher levels of difficulty because there was no way to make the AI play better. The AI requires advantages because there is simply no way to make them play "smarter" without a massive undertaking in designing a good AI. Hopefully Blake's mod will do what I hope it does: give me a real challenge similar to how a human plays, but at my lesure.